Larry Cuban, Professor of Education, presenting new book at the Stanford Bookstore

"The Blackboard and the Bottom Line"

by Larry Cuban

"Ford Motor Company would not have survived the competition had it not been for an emphasis on results. We must view education the same way," the U.S. Secretary of Education declared in 2003.

But is he right? In this provocative new book, Larry Cuban takes aim at the alluring cliché that schools should be more businesslike, and shows that in its long history in business-minded America, no one has shown that a business model can be successfully applied to education. Not only are schools by their nature not businesslike, Cuban argues, but the attempt to run them along business lines leads to dangerous over-standardization--of tests, and of goals for our children. Why should we think that there is such a thing as one best school?

Larry Cuban is Professor Emeritus of Education at Stanford University and past president of the American Educational Research Association.